Unchained
It is actually a little odd to be wearing linen next to his skin again after weeks of almost nothing but silk, but with how hot it was today the linen nagajuban was very comfortable. The new undergarment is also a much finer weave than the undershirts that had been given to him with the indigoes he'd started his captivity wearing, which makes a considerable difference.
His new tomesode is also very fine, a silk gauze, and he has not felt uncomfortably hot today despite walking around outside for the entire morning. He did feel slightly overdressed compared to the prints most of the people he met today were wearing, but some of those repeated designs were very small, and others were large and very complex. It's ironically likely his kimono may have actually required less time to make, despite being damask and dyed in two colours; not counting the embroidery, of course.
It's currently the hottest part of the day, but it's not actually terrible indoors with all the shōji open and the sudare blinds blocking out most of the sunshine. In fact it's fairly pleasant, especially with some tea to drink.
Sitting in the front room with his wife and a respectable mound of washi-wrapped packages is also surprisingly fun. He is yet to ask about any of them and Izuna is eyeing him over her tea, anticipation mingling with mild pique in her chakra.
Yes, he's teasing her by pretending he's not really that interested. Yes, it's funny. No, he regrets nothing.
Yes, Izuna can tell he's doing it on purpose; that's why it's fun. Yes, he's well aware this is a very leopard-like thing to find amusement in, but it's not like that matters.
"I very much like my new outfit," he says eventually, setting his cup aside. "What else has my Lord-Wife chosen to dress me in for the coming summer months?"
Izuna eyes him over the top of her cup with mock-reproach, then very slowly slurps the last of her tea before setting it down. Tobirama smirks at her; it's fun, teasing each-other when he can tell there's no hurt on either side and no urgency either.
"So where would my terrible tease of a concubine like to start?" She inquires sweetly. "Under-layers first? By outfit? By textile?"
"By sleeve-length," Tobirama decides on a whim, "longest first; and by outfit within that."
Izuna hums and passes him the largest package. Opening it, Tobirama finds six plain unbleached juban in translucently fine linen, clearly intended for wearing under a cotton yukata or linen summer jōfu. The sheerness of the weave will make them very airy in hot weather, but they will hide nothing and barely hang to mid-thigh. It's a good thing they're under-layers; if they were intended to be worn as a shirt he'd worry about the sun burning his skin though it.
"I have noticed you find the heat oppressive, Treasure," his wife says lightly, "so I endeavoured to choose something you would find comfortable next to your skin."
"Such a thoughtful wife I have," Tobirama says lightly, unfolding one of the sleeves to feel the weave properly. As he thought; even through two layers it is just-about possible to glimpse skin. Does something this insubstantial actually count as clothing? Or is it simply nudity claiming to be otherwise? The natural pale ecru of the delicate threads is very close to his natural skin-tone, but Tobirama can see how bleaching it white would actually draw more attention to its translucence, not less.
At least they all have the standard loose tube-shaped short sleeves they are supposed to.
"I am sure I will appreciate these as the summer becomes stifling," he says, refolding the juban in his lap and setting it aside with the others. Wearing one of these the next time he lays himself across his wife's futon for her pleasure springs to mind; they're translucent enough –and short enough– for doing so to be blatant provocation, and that could be a lot of fun.
"And you will look very fine," his wife agrees, eyeing him mischievously over a rigid round fan produced from her sleeve-seals. The pattern facing him is a delicate print of a peony bush shedding petals that drift around a stone lantern and a discarded zōri sandal, all finely outlined and shaded in shades of blue ink; Tobirama suspects it's an oblique reference to some play or other. Until recently he'd thought the seasonal references, occasional poetry and auspicious animals on the visible surface of ladies' fans were repeated on the other side as well, but now he knows that the inner surface is usually brightly coloured and often bears no relation to the visible design. He has two fans of his own proving such.
"Of course my wife would say so," he points out lightly.
"Hn," she agrees, eyes raking up his body with light-hearted lasciviousness –Tobirama feels himself instantly responding to her playful desire– then she sets her fan down and passes him another package. "Longest sleeves first, as requested."
Once he takes the gift she picks up her fan again, gently wafting cooler air over her face as she watches him intently. It makes him think of her calloused fingertips gliding over his skin, her lips pressing teasing kisses to his hands and face and throat as she unties his obi for access to yet more skin to caress, to taste, to pleasure.
Tobirama drops his eyes to the washi-wrapped gift in his lap, aware that he cannot hide his arousal from his wife; she is too perceptive. He breathes; he is opening gifts. Other things can wait until later.
Peeling back the washi reveals deep blue linen with a bold design in bright white and hints of pale water-blue; Tobirama can't help his pleased smile.
"It's not indigo," Izuna teases him, "so I thought it might please you."
"It is very fine indeed," Tobirama says, shaking it out; it truly is magnificent. The colour is true ultramarine blue, which is a very popular synthetic pigment from Water Country and equally suited to dyes, painting and cosmetics. This linen jōfu has sleeves no less deep than his visiting kimono, but it is resist-printed with a simple and stylish pattern of waving pampas grass, just two staggered stems swaying on each panel for maximum impact and minimal busyness.
It is entirely Izuna to find a print he adores and have it made up into a kimono with deep sleeves; Tobirama instantly resolves to wear it regardless. The sleeves will not kill him.
Then he sighs, because his wife clearly knew this print would overcome his reservations. "My wife is terribly devious in her gift-giving," he laments spuriously as he folds the summer jōfu up again.
Izuna fans herself languidly. "Oh but Treasure," she croons. "When dressing you, every gift is also a gift for me."
Tobirama had known that, but it is one thing to know and another to hear it said. "What less extravagantly-sleeved offerings has my Lord-Wife purchased for herself to enjoy then?" He's fairly sure that whatever the literary reference for that fan-print is, it is somewhat indecent. A lady's sandal discarded in a garden can only have suggestive connotations, for where is the lady and what other garments has she parted company with? How very much like Izuna to have such a suggestive scene plainly in view on an everyday item.
His wife hums and selects another kimono-sized package; evidently his wonderful blue garment does not have a specific obi to go with it; no matter, it will look fine with his rapeseed green soft obi.
Pulling back the washi of this package reveals pink. Striped pink. Thin vertical printed stripes in medium safflower –which is a very vivid pink indeed– and sakura pink, which looks almost like a warm white in contrast. Tobirama eyeballs his wife as he unfolds the jōfu; this one has completely appropriate masculine sleeves, to go with its very masculine and sober stripe pattern in a vivid and feminine colour set.
He is going to wear this; he knows it already. It is fine, comfortable linen with a subtle pattern and easily-managed sleeves, and holding it against his arm reveals that the brilliant pink does, in fact, suit his skin tone. He could wear this and look good.
Tobirama could have happily gone his entire life without learning he would look good in vivid pink. But evidently this is the price he has to pay for the Senju's continued survival, so he will bear it as best he can. If he ever manages to regain some pride for his wife to repurchase, he will be more specific in requesting masculine sleeves and an absence of bright pink. "I can see that this will suit me," he admits, "and that my wife has gone to considerable lengths to ensure this is something I will be comfortable wearing."
Izuna smiles at him, soft and delighted with relief subtle but perceptible in her chakra, and hands him a smaller parcel.
This gift is a very masculine soft obi in kudzu-green silk gauze with an attractively simple fletching pattern damasked into it; it can be worn with the pink kimono, softening it, but does not quite work with the ultramarine kimono. Then again, his rapeseed-green obi will work, so that's not exactly a problem. "This is very fine and will also look good with my current kimono," he notes, "and I see that neither of these are the sober silk outfit waved in front of me yesterday."
Which means that, since this is going in order of sleeve-depth, said sober kimono also has sleeves of a properly masculine cut. Which is so very Izuna really, though it also likely means that not one of his painted kimono will have sleeves that are less than draping. He is however not terribly opposed to the length he is currently wearing. It's when they get into the 'younger matron' range –which his very fine pampas-grass-print kimono does sidle up close to– that he starts to feel a little uncomfortable.
At least Izuna has enough mercy to not dress him in sleeves befitting a new bride. That he could not countenance; his wife can wear them.
"No, they are not," Izuna agrees, patting the trio of gifts remaining beside her. "That is here, if you are ready for it?"
Tobirama carefully folds the soft obi and sets it aside. "I am."
His next gift is a fine linen nagajuban dyed in pale persimmon, a light orangey brown. It is resist-printed with flowering pinks, easily recognised by the five zigzag-edged petals that make up every round flower head, and is printed over the top with thin leaves and jointed stems in glazed persimmon, a ruddier, deeper shade of orange-brown than the background. Summery but subtle, the autumn flowers barely visible at collar and sleeve-cuffs; Tobirama likes it. "This is a very well-chosen colour gradient," he says, folding it back up again, "and I am now even more curious about what 'sober' kimono will go well with it."
Izuna hums, eyes bright and eager over the top of the fan, and passes him the penultimate parcel; the small parcel. Tobirama accepts it gamely and unfolds it across his lap.
The leno-weave silk obi is unlined, full-width and a delicate eggshell colour; unfolding it reveals grey-capped greenfinches painted with startling realism, wings spread as they take flight all at once across the pattern section, with a few more of the birds fluttering here and there around what would be the visible waist section. It is slightly shorter than his other full-width obi, closer to the checked half-width obi despite being rather wider.
He does like those birds though. The colours are perfect and so is the shading; they might almost be real. The undyed silk obi cords tucked into the folds are also very welcome; they will look very good with the kimono he is wearing regardless of the obi he adds over the top.
"I like this obi very much, it is beautiful," he says firmly. It will even go with his new ultramarine kimono if he wishes to be a bit more formal, as well as the pink striped kimono. Despite the colours working well he however can't wear it with the tomesode he currently has on; kimono and obi patterns are supposed to complement, and having the same feature or pattern on both –two kinds of birds, two types of water ripples, etc– is considered a fashion faux pas. Unless the design is flowers, of course.
Izuna's eyes crinkle over the top of her fan, Amaterasu's necklace shifting. "I am delighted to hear it, Treasure. Here," She pushes the last package across the tatami, "your sober silk kimono."
Tobirama carefully folds the eggshell obi back into its wrapping, then takes the last package. Well, the last of this set; he still has three more painted silk kimono to survive, which will doubtless be a little nerve-racking.
Removing the washi reveals a leno-weave chirimen gauze dyed a deep ruddy purple; mulberry-seed colour, he's fairly sure this one is, unless it's adzuki bean. Some of the colour variations in the sample book Azumaya-ba got for him look very similar to him, but evidently there is some perceptible difference in the shading to Uchiha eyes even if he is oblivious to it. This kimono has a large irregular curving pattern that seemed to be weft-only, resist-dyed onto the silk before weaving, so Tobirama shakes the garment out.
It's stunning. A crashing wave-crest pattern, stylised frothy foam the brilliant creamy white of undyed silk against the warm yet subdued background, slightly broken up by the regular twists of the warp threads that create neat rows of tiny gaps in the weave, which are what give leno-weave its subtly striped appearance.
This is beautiful silk that will look amazing both with the nagajuban provided or over one of the plain juban on even hotter days, and it's very clearly intended as a casual everyday kimono. It's kasuri-dyed –in a very large pattern yes, but that still counts– and in a cut and colour he doesn't think he could ever tire of; it will even look good with his rapeseed soft obi if he doesn't want to wear the full-width greenfinch one.
"I will enjoy wearing all my new kimono," he says eventually, "but I think this one is my favourite." It narrowly wins over the pampas grass for being silk and having less deep sleeves; they are not narrow warrior sleeves, of course –no proper kimono has those– but the attachment to the body of the outfit is wider and fully stitched, and the overhang is suitably subtle.
Izuna lowers her fan to reveal a wide, delighted smile. "I am very happy to have pleased you with my choices, Treasure," she says warmly. "Alas that I did not think to provide you with a summer tea kimono; I will have to rectify that."
"I can wear my wool kimono over one of my new linen nagajuban," Tobirama says easily; "the persimmon one I think, with my very fine new greenfinch obi. That will be suitably subdued and also comfortably cool." Wool is a lovely thing to wear, warm in winter yet cool in summer, but unfortunately it is a fairly expensive import from either Wind or Earth. He's not sure which kind of wool his white-tea-coloured kimono is exactly, but either way it was likely quite an investment.
Not that his other kimono aren't that as well, but of all the kimono Izuna has given him, the subtle, subdued wool damask is the only one which she could never had commissioned within the clan. Yes, he knows she bought at least the shrimp-print, but she could have commissioned such a thing from a kinsman if she'd cared to wait that long and save herself some money.
"Well we have until the wagashi arrive to do whatever you would like," Izuna says mildly, "As Hayami-chan has very thoughtfully set up the tea house for me; apparently I need to let her do more, she's bored with just cleaning and keeping the vases in seasonal flowers."
So that is where the fresh flowers are coming from. "Is that my cue to crack a fusuma trying to have sex with you against it?" Tobirama asks dryly; Izuna lets out an inelegant whoop of laughter, slapping the tatami.
"Oh Treasure," she manages to snigger after more cackling laughter, "oh, the gossip can you imagine?" She shakes her head, plucking a handkerchief from thin air to dab at her eyes with. "Yes, I know Uchiha fusuma are rather sturdier than the usual civilian kind –we make them like tsuitate, actual boards instead of painted paper over the inner lattice– but that's no excuse for assuming they'll take your weight!"
"The Diplomatic Quarters fusuma were very sturdy," Tobirama says mock-innocently, grinning at her reaction to his joke. "I was terribly misled and assumed they were all like that."
Izuna wheezes and topples over on her side onto the tatami, still shaking with laughter.
Tobirama has been served Tea Ceremony by Izuna a few times now, but this is the first time he has ever taken tea in a proper chashitsu, never mind taken part in one of the more significant ceremonies of the tea calendar. Thankfully however Izuna seems to have decided to spare him the formality of a chaji –then again, it's hard to arrange such a thing at half a day's notice– and he is rather more familiar with the steps involved in a Tea Ceremony now than he was the first time his wife did this, so the experience is less didactic and more enjoyable.
Not that he has ever not enjoyed Tea with Izuna, but it's nice to not stumble over the formalities, nor to need her occasional quiet prompting. The slow dance of the ceremony with its prescribed steps, its subtle, restful rhythm and its enforced contemplation helps his mind to settle, letting him leave his many fears and thoughts outside the building.
The wagashi provided by an unspecified Uchiha are awa daifuku with a loquat jelly filling; seeing them makes Tobirama smile despite the meditative calm of the Tea Ceremony, reminding him of Izuna's wailing over being banned from her favourite sweets for half a year. Evidently her fondness for the treat is well-known within the clan. Then again, even if they hadn't known before her father banned her from the treat, they most certainly would have done by the end of that punishment.
It does not surprise him that the Uchiha make their daifuku by mixing millet in with the rice as it is steamed and kneaded into mochi; they grow fields of the tall grain crop within their compound, its stems and leaves strongly reed-like with heavy seed-heads like foxes' tails. It is a very small grain and surprisingly tasty; Tobirama has come to enjoy the variety of dishes that the Uchiha serve and the creativity with which they have altered what he considers to be bland staple meals. Perhaps not as fine as the much-fabled Akimichi cookery, but certainly better than what he's used to preparing for himself.
Izuna serves him wearing a kudzu-leaf green silk gauze kimono with a delicate resist-print of swaying reeds, tied at her waist by a dove-grey obi heavily damasked with deep grey cormorants. It makes her restful to look at, the subdued tones and patterns quite unlike her usual vibrant preferences, and clarifies what a different space this is from the outer world.
The tea is good and the daifuku are sweet and juicy. Tobirama feels calmer for the ceremony despite it being a little different –his part did not change, only Izuna's– and even after it ends, the sense of peace lingers.
This is the first time Izuna has used a proper brazier to make him Tea, not just her hands or a fuuinjutsu-marked metal plate. It makes the ceremony longer and also somehow more real.
Tobirama feels… content.
The contentment lasts through the rest of the afternoon –which Tobirama spends napping intermittently as Izuna composes on her koto– through Kiso's return and dinner, after which the dropping temperature turns his idle languor to playful wrestling with the toddler before bed.
Then once Kiso is in bed, Izuna takes him to her bed and Tobirama luxuriates in the pleasure of giving his wife exactly what she asks of him and embracing what she grants him in return.
But he sleeps badly, and ends up moving back to his own room after the second time waking up and finding he's stolen most of his wife's sheets; Izuna kisses him blearily and mumbles something about messengers, so he's not entirely sure she was as awake as she'd claimed to be when he left.
When he finally wakes to dawn light peeking through the shōji he finds himself half-sprawled on the tatami, curled around Kiso's toddler futon. Stretching meticulously, Tobirama decides further rest is a lost cause; it is time to get up and face the day, whatever it may bring.
And to try not to worry himself into a frenzy before Baasan gets here.
As he waits by the main gate of the Uchiha compound –which does not actually have any doors, being an open torii-like structure over the wide road that runs parallel to the river through the Outguard district and beyond it through the fields to the south, more a concession to allowing swift movement of a large number of warriors towards the Senju compound than any kind of official entrance– Tobirama reminds himself to thank his wife for ambushing him on his way out of the bathhouse this morning. Retrospectively he can see he had been trying to come up with rational justifications for all his choices –both the things he had done and not done– and Izuna cornering him, chakra urgent and physical scent heavy with lust as she pressed kisses to his hands and begged him to indulge her desires, had been a highly effective and enjoyable distraction.
It had also reminded him that his choices were not made in the absence of other influences. He is married yes, and is determined to honour that commitment, but it was still a choice he was coerced into making and his subsequent decisions while imprisoned were all heavily informed by said imprisonment. While Tōka was with him he had to tread carefully so as not to do anything that might have led her to be punished, and then her escape exposed him to further difficult choices.
Remembering Tōma, shackled to the wall with nothing but a borrowed shirt and a blanket he couldn't even cover himself with, Tobirama is sure that collaborating with Izuna was the right choice; is still the right choice. If he had chosen death he could not now be helping his family, and if he had been more incautious about trying to escape Tōka might well have been maimed before she could escape, and he would still be under greater restrictions. But he chose the long game, and it is now paying off. He has his wife's affection, greater freedoms and the liberty to push for more later.
He trusted Izuna's honesty and he has been repaid: the Uchiha and Senju now have a ceasefire and a peace treaty is now being tentatively planned. There has even been a letter from the Aburame, to discuss the preliminary arrangements in person before the actual terms are discussed.
Peace treaties, it turns out, are a long, slow business; actual negotiation is unlikely to begin until after the summer heat has passed. But they will have the ceasefire until then, and Izuna's immediate invitation to his grandmother is a good starting-point for convincing both sides that yes, this will work.
He feels very self-conscious, despite wearing his new and very masculine-styled crashing-wave kasuri kimono with his orange and white stiff obi. Part of it is the oak-leaf-print umbrella –a perpetual reminder that he cannot simply protect his skin from the sun with chakra– but mostly it's the various Outguard Uchiha 'casually' wandering through his sensory range, all terribly curious about his wife's guest.
Senju Sunami being her guest, Izuna has gone down to the Uchiha's southern border to meet and escort Tobirama's grandmother the rest of the way, his having assured his wife that regardless of her age, Baasan is perfectly capable of running at shinobi speeds when required. Even in a formal kimono.
She was born an Uzumaki after all, and they live very long and healthy lives.
It's an hour to the border at a dead run, and Tobirama isn't sure Baasan can run quite that fast; he didn't even leave the house until over an hour after Izuna had, using the time to talk to Naka-Dragon about the arrangements made and check the chashitsu. There is a basket of charcoal for him to fuel the already-lit brazier with, an iron pot for brewing tea and Izuna's tea caddy waiting with the guest cups and a succession of fuuinjutsu-sealed snack boxes, so the food contained within won't go bad in the heat. He isn't sure how they work and the seal itself doesn't offer any clues: two adjacent equilateral triangles with a corner in common, mirroring each-other, with a horizontal line drawn across the inside of each triangle below that contact point.
Naka-Dragon demonstrated the opening mechanism to him, a little twist to 'turn' the seal so the triangles are one balanced on top of the other rather than adjacent, but that still did not offer any clues as to its underlying principles.
Something to ask Izuna about later.
Beyond the gate he is waiting at there are a row of fields, and then a wide cleared meadow stretching from the river to his left away to the right, an area presumably used for training and assembling the Outguard as well as a security measure. He's seen a patrol arrive and another leave since he started waiting, and protocol seems to be for warriors to slow to a regular jog upon passing the treeline rather than using enhanced speed right up to the gate. It's a good measure, and there's evidently a sensor on duty to raise the alarm if anybody doesn't do this.
Surely it won't take that much longer for Baasan to arrive?
And then, as though summoned by his impatience and the persistent, irrational fear that she will not actually come at all, a trio of people materialise at the treeline: two Uchiha, but the third shorter and unmistakeably red-haired, wearing a michiyuki coat in the vivid shade of teal that is traditional for Uzumaki; the blue-tinted green of bamboo.
It is so strange to see her and not sense her, but it is her. He can tell by how she stands and walks, although that faintly pink-tinged red hair is distinctive enough.
She came. Tobirama takes a deep breath, then another; he will not cry.
He does cry. But Baachan hugs him and Izuna gives him her handkerchief, like he doesn't have one of his own, and they're happy tears. It's fine.
His grandmother keeps up a polite stream of conversation with Izuna all the way to the Amaterasu Residence and through her coat being hung in the genkan –revealing a glorious dark bellflower blue visiting kimono painted with flower rafts– until Tobirama has escorted her into the little tea-house in the garden. Then and only then do her face and chakra turn serious:
Show me the fuuinjutsu, grandson."
"Baa-san!" Tobirama protests, but nonetheless tugs at the collar of his kimono and nagajuban until they are both loose enough that he can shrug the upper half of the garment off his shoulders, the stiff obi wrapped just above his hips holding the rest of his outfit in place. Then he turns his back, sitting down so she can see all of it without stretching; hopefully Baachan won't comment on the greenish bruise on the side of his neck, left from where Izuna bit him there a week ago.
He doesn't actually know if the seal looks the same as it did when Tōka first described it to him; Izuna has modified it several times since his cousin left, or at least modified its function. The increased freedom of movement being the most noticeable change, but he clearly remembers the ease with which she granted him access to chakra –and then took it away again.
"Tōka-chan is entirely correct," Baasan says eventually, after much humming and some mortifying tugging at his obi to examine the lower edge of the seal beneath his waistline. "It is indeed Invocation, and a very complex one; or perhaps, should I say, not complex enough."
Tobirama glances back at her over his shoulder; she feels like she wants to cry. "Baachan?"
"Oh, my darling grandson," Baachan says, voice hitching. "Invocation is by far the most dangerous of the fuuinjutsu disciplines my family studies; those belonging to this particular school just disappear sometimes. Or have dramatic and messy accidents with seals that have worked perfectly well in the past. And not one of them has ever painted their seals on anything other than paper."
Despite it being a warm morning in late spring, Tobirama abruptly feels very, very cold; he pulls his nagajuban back up over his shoulders, then gets to his feet so as to straighten the layers properly and cover the telltale mark on his throat.
"It is a beautiful piece of work," Baachan concedes, anger mingling with her grief, "but my darling boy, your Lord-Wife has invited a kami to touch your soul so that she can ensure that any transgressions on your part will be instantly punished. And the limitations or conditions demarcating what counts as unacceptable behaviour seem… imprecise."
"Imprecise or subjective?" Tobirama asks, deciding his nagajuban is as straight as it is going to get without taking his obi and other belts off again and starting from scratch. He is not stripping naked in front of his grandmother, not when he has considerably more recent marks of his wife's enjoyment of his body colouring his thighs.
Baachan hums, chakra steadying slightly in the face of an inquiry into fuuinjutsu theory. "Subjective is perhaps a better word. There is much of this seal I cannot read, grandson, because the terminology and symbolism used are entirely unfamiliar; however the criteria by which your actions are judged are clear enough: you are bound to the welfare of the household of the one who bound you."
The welfare of Izuna's household. "So I cannot disrupt my wife's domestic arrangements," he says heavily as he puts his arms back into the kimono sleeves, "yet I am also protected from others who would do so." His chest hurts. He knew he was bound, and bound tightly, but why do the details hurt so much?
"I believe you could disrupt them," Baachan says shrewdly, "so long as your disruption held the intention of improving the household, or else protecting it from outside harm. You may build up; you cannot wilfully destroy, or even be complicit in others doing so."
To escape would terminally disrupt Izuna's household; Tobirama's hands shake as he straightens the front of his outfit. "Thank you for telling me."
They will have a child together before the year's end, but Izuna's household is not merely herself and the unborn; there is Kiso to think of as well, and he has made promises there. Leaving would be abandoning Kiso, which would most certainly disrupt Izuna's household and reduce the toddler to disquieting withdrawn silence once more. Which he does not wish to be the cause of.
"Oh grandson." He looks up as she moves to stand next to him. "Let me hug you again, Tobira-kun; I have my grandson restored to me and in good health, and my granddaughter as well. I am so very grateful to you for making that possible, Tobi-kun."
Tobirama had not expected any of his family to thank him for making that decision. Hearing Baachan praise his rushed and selfish choice to not see his cousin murdered in front of him is–
He is crying again; Baachan still smells like osmanthus even through his blunted senses and to feel her arms and steady autumn-ocean-afternoon chakra wrapped around him again is wonderful.
Tea and the first round of snacks –senbei only, breakfast was not so long ago after all– help Tobirama settle again, as does washing his face in the sink in the back room of the chashitsu. Then, once he is more composed, he determinedly sets about asking all those questions he's been avoiding thinking about because he couldn't answer them.
"So what happened to my father?"
Baachan sighs, eyes lowering to her tea. "Staring with the hard questions, grandson," she murmurs. "No, do not apologise; I fully understand. The rest of the clan were all told, and you have a right to know as well. Tokonoma-kun announced a week ago that Shitomi-san murdered my oldest son, and that Yagura-san walked in on the deed and killed Shitomi-san in vengeance." She closes her eyes. "I do not believe that is the full tale, but Tokonoma-kun swore to me on the lives of his children that he neither murdered his brother nor ordered it done, and that is enough."
Tobirama bows his head; he knows this is no less painful for Baachan than it is for him; more painful even, as his father was her son. Not her firstborn –Ōka-ba holds that position– but no less her first son for that.
His father is by no means the first son his grandmother has lost, but the rest fell to war and missions, not to murder.
Tobirama still does not miss his father. He sees that the loss causes his grandmother pain and that makes him want to comfort her, but he does not hurt like she does.
He did not weep at Kawarama's death, or at his funeral. He felt empty and confused until three months later, when he came upon a patch of mushrooms and broke down completely, because they'd been his littlest brother's favourites. Then Itama had died, and Tobirama had dreaded the looming grief more than the funeral.
But it hadn't come when he'd expected it to, and he'd thought it wouldn't come at all. Then he'd discovered Hashirama was meeting with an Uchiha and he'd had to restrain himself from interrupting the clandestine meeting and throwing himself at the two idiots, how dare they?! How dare they do that when it was Uchiha who murdered Itama, their vicious, precious crybaby brother, who tortured him before he died–!
He'd screamed and sobbed and flooded a small meadow, then staggered home and told his father about Hashirama's new 'friend'. And he still held he'd done the right thing, because if he hadn't told Father then Hashirama would have found himself facing Tajima all alone, and he'd have died.
He doesn't feel that dull emptiness about his father's death though; he just feels relieved. Does that make him unfilial?
Well if it does, then his father shouldn't have proved himself unworthy of Tobirama's regard by sending kinsmen to murder him. And he especially shouldn't have sent Tōma.
"Has Anija noticed he's not Clan Heir yet?"
Baachan snorts. "Mito-chan has; I think she's relieved. She's seen what being Clan Head did to her father-in-law after all; I think she's grateful that Hashirama-kun will never risk following in his father's footsteps." She eyes him over her tea. "He may be soft-hearted and outspoken about ending the feud, but that utter conviction in his own rightness is very like the assurance that your father had as a young man, that his path was just and his cause was righteous. And it was my own husband's determination to do right by the clan that led me to love him."
Tobirama sips his tea; he does not want to believe that Anija could ever match his father in cruelty, but… he knows Hashirama is careless, and also that once his brother's mind is made up he is impossible to sway from his chosen course. And since being abducted by Izuna, he has seen and heard undeniable proof that his brother is not seeking to learn more about the peace process, or even about the Uchiha; proof that his brother's well-meaning ignorance has cost lives and exacerbated the alienation between their clans. Meaning well does not shield a person from unfavourable results; who knows how Anija would have blundered irreversibly in trying to make peace if he had become Clan Head?
"Tōka is a good student, when she applies herself," is all he says.
"Yes, she is," Baachan says lightly, "and she is certainly applying herself much more now; I may have to thank Izuna-chan for her efforts. And you too, Tobi-kun; you have taught my little peach-blossom more new kanji in two months than I managed to drill into her stubborn brain in two years."
"I think that was the broken legs," Tobirama says dryly, setting his cup down.
"Then I shall have to recommend longer convalescences for young warriors to Ōka-chan, for educational purposes," Baachan says blandly; Tobirama stifles a snicker and takes a senbei.
"However, grandson, I would very much like to hear more about your situation from you," his grandmother goes on, tone softening. "Tōka-chan has said her piece, but we both know she is not the most subtle, and you have always been very good at hiding your true feelings behind rational excuses."
"Izuna-san does not find me so," Tobirama says before he can stop himself.
Baasan looks at him calmly. "You wife does not find you how, dear one?"
"She doesn't find me hard to read." Tobirama meets her eyes for a brief, half-accusing moment. "And most of the other Uchiha I've met don't seem to struggle much either, but Izuna-san can pick up on confusion or interest when I'm not even looking at her."
"That may partly be the seal she has placed on you," Baasan points out steadily, "but I can concede that the Uchiha are infamous for their perspicacity, even when not using their bloodline. It may well be that they find you easier to read."
Now Tobirama feels foolish.
"But that does not answer my question, grandson: how are you?"
Tobirama picks up his tea and drinks it. "I am…" What does he say? That he's well cared-for? That he feels heard? That he has a small boy he has committed himself to parenting, and another infant girl who will no doubt be joining their household before Izuna's own unborn takes its first breath? That he likes the person his lifelong battlefield rival has proved to be and trusts her to keep her word to him?
That he's starting to realise he might not just like her as a person, but love her? Not just lust for the embrace of her body and delight in the quickness of her mind, but desire her joy, her trust, her very self?
"I am learning," Tobirama says very carefully, "that I know very little indeed about the Uchiha, both as a clan and as people, and that the more I learn, the more I cannot help but wonder why we have been feuding with them for so long." He takes a breath. "I have also learned that war makes monsters of us all, knowing and unknowing." One day Kiso-kun will be old enough to ask what happened to his parents, siblings and other family, old enough to understand the answer, and on that day Tobirama will have to tell him. And it will hurt.
He hopes Izuna has built enough subtlety into the seal binding him that telling a hard truth will not harm him, even if that truth makes Kiso cry and rage. A hard truth is far less disruptive in the long term than allowing deceit to stand.
"It is hard to deny the humanity and value of those you live among, is it not?" Baasan says gently, chakra soft and eyes terribly knowing.
"Did you want to marry Jii-san, Baa-san?"
"Not particularly," his grandmother says calmly, sipping her tea. "But I was the right age and had no particular suitor who had caught my eye, and my father asked it of me. I did not want to leave my home, to travel inland where the cries of the gulls and the smell of salt would no longer be constant companions, just to marry a younger man with blood on his hands whom I had seen only once and never spoken to. But if it was not me it would be my younger sister, and she was desperately in love with a glassblower's apprentice. So I agreed for her sake."
"Did you come to care for him?"
"Eventually. It was seeing how he doted on Ōka-chan, despite her being a daughter and not the son the clan had been hoping for, that finally won my heart, but I came to care for him before that. He listened to me, trusted my advice and did not hide himself from me. He did his best for the clan, but war made him hard to those beyond his immediate family."
"He loved you?"
"He cherished me," Baasan says deliberately. "He loved my children. He respected my judgement and my abilities. But did he love me? No more than most men love their sisters or their battlefield comrades; he was not a man given to passion, your Jii-san. It made it easier, in many ways; he never once tried to use his feelings for me to pressure me into things, as some men are given to doing to their lovers and wives."
Tobirama has seen that happen; he's grateful it's not something Izuna even seems to consider.
His grandmother sighs. "Was it a grand romance? No. Was it comfortable? Not particularly, seeing as we were frequently at war and I had to comfort him through the loss of siblings and cousins, then of sons. But I found contentment in my lot and after his death I did not return home to Uzushio, as was written into my marriage contract that I would be allowed to do." She sets her empty cup down. "I have been widowed for almost as long as I have been married; I could have rebuilt my life in Uzu in that time. But I did not wish to."
"You had a new home."
"I did."
Tobirama pours another round of tea as he thinks about her words. "Who is living in my house now?"
Baachan's chakra flinches. "Kurinma claimed it," she says quietly. "But then with Chirinma's death, Aoi-chan needed a smaller house to run so as to take on extra work to feed the children. So Kurinma has moved back into the larger house with Kyōka and Zafu and their children; Aoi and her little ones live in your former home now." She looks up at him. "She didn't lose the baby, but it was a near thing; Rika-chan thinks it's likely to be born premature after this."
So his home now houses the heavily-pregnant wife of a recently-dead cousin once removed –a cousin who swung a sword down over him while he slept, intending murder– and her two children; Tobirama honestly doesn't want it back. Especially not if Kurinma was living there first; Kurinma has very different tastes to him, and with the lack of hostilities will have had both the time and the energy to change things to his liking.
If he did go back, he'd need a new house. And it wouldn't be even a quarter as comfortable as his current house.
Not that housing is a deciding factor, but…
If he was unhappy with his current situation, he wouldn't care about where he'd end up living if he got away. It's not ideal, no, but… it's not often frustrating. He is contained yes, but he does not feel stifled.
"I am content," he admits quietly. "It is… there are things I would like to change, but I also believe they are things that I can change, given time." Izuna is not at all unyielding, and has shown herself willing to give him greater leeway in response to changing circumstances. Yes, he is still finding his feet after the latest change –unexpectedly leaving the Diplomatic Quarters– but once he does, he is sure he can win himself new concessions.
"Then I am pleased for my grandson, that his unexpected marriage has proved comfortable."
Tobirama picks up his new cup of tea to hide his swirling emotions. "Thank you, Baa-san."
What else can he say, when faced with unexpected acceptance?